


Obligations of Choice

by AirgiodSLV



Category: Black Jewels - Anne Bishop
Genre: M/M, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 13:23:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13054845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AirgiodSLV/pseuds/AirgiodSLV
Summary: “I proposed a more...permanent...arrangement,” Rainier explained reluctantly, closing his eyes briefly as he put his bleeding heart on display, along with the stinging shame of rejection. “He didn’t feel that he could honor such an arrangement while serving in a Court.”





	Obligations of Choice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eirenical (chibi1723)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chibi1723/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, eirenical (chibi1723). Your prompts were absolutely amazing; I wish I could have written them all.

Rainier should have known there was trouble waiting even before he entered Daemon Sadi's study.

Correction: He _did_ know there was trouble, but by the time Surreal came storming out the door, muttering curses, it was too late to retreat.

Sadi was already waiting for him.

"Prince Rainier," Sadi crooned, while Rainier hovered in the doorway, uncertain of whether or not he really wanted to fully enter the study and shut himself in behind that door. With that man.

"Prince," Rainier echoed carefully. There were some days when his employer was simply 'Sadi'; once or twice, thanks to Surreal, he'd even been 'cousin'. Always, and especially at moments like these, he was also 'Prince'. A Warlord Prince, dangerous to anyone who might prick his temper.

Surreal had just been in this room. She was very good at provoking tempers. And pricks.

"You have something for me?"

Relieved at the opportunity to focus Sadi's attention on something other than himself, Rainier offered the sheaf of papers he'd been carrying, which he was now holding in front of him like a shield.

 _As if there were any kind of shield that could hold Sadi back once he'd decided to get through it_.

"The lists you requested, from the service fair in Little Terreille."

Any hope that Sadi would focus on the papers was lost as Sadi continued to stare at him. Not _at_ , no. _Through_. Rainier shifted slightly, uncomfortable, and winced at the twinge in his leg. He would have sat if he'd planned on staying, but with Sadi in this mood, Rainier didn't plan on sticking around once he was dismissed. That, and there were some times a man wanted to hold himself ready for a fight. Rainier resisted the instinct to fall back a half-step into one of the fighting stances Lucivar had drilled into him, after he'd been injured protecting Surreal. Making himself into a threat in front of this man was the _last_ thing he wanted to do.

His flinch hadn't gone unnoticed. "You've been hurt," Daemon noted. There was a sleepy look in his eyes that hadn't been there a moment ago.

 _Mother Night_.

"Only the old injury," Rainier answered, proud of himself for keeping his voice from shaking. He was used to Sadi now, for the most part, but there were still times...

And Darkness help him, but when Sadi was in this mood, Rainier found it as arousing as he did terrifying.

"Not that." The denial cut off Rainier's intended weak explanation of rainy weather and chill damp bringing out the ache. Golden eyes narrowed as they continued to look at him, past the surface. "Someone's hurt you."

It cut before he could stop it, the knife-blade still too fresh and sharp to avoid re-opening the wound. "It's nothing." _Only a broken heart_. At least the wound was also fresh enough to keep him from sounding bitter about it.

It wasn’t enough to keep the air from chilling around him, and for the look in Sadi’s eyes to go from unfocused and sleepy to deliberately fixed, freezing Rainier where he stood.

 _Mother Night, he’s rising to the killing edge_.

And for Rainier. He would have been flattered, stunned by what that meant, had it not put him directly at risk. A Warlord Prince more often rose to the killing edge to protect a witch he served; that kind of threat aimed at _him_ , another Warlord Prince, made his own instincts itch to meet the threat, never mind that he wore an Opal Jewel and Daemon Sadi wore the Black. A challenge was a challenge, and the predatory side of him wanted to meet it.

But because he was something close to family, and because this particular Prince was one he served, he could rein it in.

“A personal matter. No harm was done.” When Sadi’s expression - and fixed attention - didn’t waver in the slightest, Rainier unbent enough to admit quietly, “He had reason.”

Sadi’s hands, with those long, dark-tinted nails, steepled in front of him. The tips of those nails brushed his lips, tightening the coil of desire Rainier was trying desperately to ignore to a degree that was almost painful.

“Explain,” the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan ordered softly.

Rainier swallowed, and found that he had to look away, even though everything in him screamed for him to keep the predator in his line of sight. “I proposed a more...permanent...arrangement,” he explained reluctantly, closing his eyes briefly as he put his bleeding heart on display, along with the stinging shame of rejection. “He didn’t feel that he could honor such an arrangement while serving in a Court.”

The chill faded suddenly, making Rainier shiver in the returning warmth. “I see,” Sadi answered. Rainier risked meeting his eyes, and found the ghost of old pain in Sadi’s eyes.

Oh, yes. Sadi understood serving, and the obligations that tied a man’s hands as much as they gave him a lifeline. Just because he served in a different way, now, didn’t erase the lessons taught painfully by a thousand years of enslavement.

Rainier cleared his throat. “Is there anything else I can do for you, Prince?”

Risky, to ask so openly for dismissal when Sadi’s temper had only just thawed. But Rainier received only a shake of Sadi’s head, and a distant thanks for delivering the lists.

Rainier didn’t know whether to feel relieved or worried that Sadi’s attention was clearly somewhere else entirely. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he hadn’t heard the last of this.

* * *

Rainier heard Surreal’s snarl before she appeared, her eyes narrowed and her fingers curled as though they were just itching for a knife.

“Tell me,” she demanded, “why I just had to hear from _Daemon_ that someone just broke your heart?”

It hurt. He tried to let it, to ride it out, but merciful Darkness, it was hard not to flinch away from the pain that hadn’t faded at all.

“That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?” he asked mildly, and reached for the bottle on the table with a hand that wanted to shake. He didn’t let it. “Wine?”

Surreal snarled again, this time loud and close enough to raise the hairs on the back of his neck. “Who?”

“Pardon?” It wouldn’t get him far, if it got him anywhere at all, but he’d try anything to avoid talking about this. Even with her.

“ _Who_?” she snarled again, and he instinctively pulled the wine glasses back out of her reach. In her current mood, he’d be lucky if she didn’t break them over his head. When he didn’t answer, she jumped to the correct conclusion on her own, as he’d known she would. “It was that pointy-eared, cocksucking bastard, wasn’t it?”

Rainier very deliberately didn’t look at Surreal’s ears, which were as delicately pointed as his lover’s - _his former lover’s_ \- and a subject he knew enough to stay well away from. She could be touchy about the Dea al Mon side of her heritage, and she’d been even touchier about Calixte sharing it. The Dea al Mon were more insular than most races, and males served the witches of their kind with fierce - and, in Surreal’s view, smothering - protectiveness.

When their relationship had first become serious, a few months past, Calixte had included Surreal among the witches he viewed as his to protect. The fact that Rainier had already laid his own claim on Surreal didn’t set them against each other; if anything, it was a declaration. The women Rainier cared for, Calixte would care for as well.

He’d thought, at the time, that it was a sign their relationship would last.

He’d been wrong about that.

Because he couldn’t address the ‘pointy-eared’ part of her comment, Rainier chose the other half. “You never minded his cocksucking before,” he reminded her, and managed to keep it from aching too much by not remembering what Calixte was like in bed, strong and dominating and sweetly tender; the kind of lover who got you so tangled up in pleasure that you’d beg for mercy just to have a respite from the intensity of the experience.

_So much for not remembering._

“Oh, I minded,” Surreal muttered, adding right after, “I just didn’t know he was still doing it.”

“Well, now he isn’t,” Rainier said shortly, taking refuge in temper as an escape from the emotional ache.

Surreal was only quiet for a few seconds before she exploded. “I don’t understand. I thought you weren’t interested in relationships and lovers. I knew you weren’t celibate, but I thought this was just a romp. What happened to swearing off men who’d break our hearts?”

He looked at her strangely then, surprised to see that she met his gaze with as much bewilderment in her eyes as there was in her voice.

“Surreal,” he said slowly, gently, “that was your resolution, not mine.”

It rocked her back on her heels, but he could see the truth of it sink in, and her dawning understanding. After Falonar, she’d sworn off lovers and taken Rainier as her escort and friend, knowing he wasn’t interested in a physical relationship with a witch-- _any_ witch, so his lack of interest wasn’t a slight to her. She’d assumed the same was true for him; that he wanted her as a friend because he didn’t want a man who’d break his heart.

Rainier had never closed himself off from the possibility of a long-term lover, though. It had only taken a while for him to find one worth keeping. The right one, he’d thought. The one who’d finally meant enough for him to propose a full partnership.

He could see Surreal trying to fall back on anger to cover her confusion - and yes, hurt - and he let her see, in turn, how exhausted and emotionally wrung-out he was already, without adding a fight with her on top of it.

She folded, though not gracefully. “I still don’t know why I had to find out from Sadi,” she said tartly, but most of the sting was out of her voice.

Rainier swallowed. “I was going to tell you,” he replied. “I just wasn’t ready yet. Prince Sadi...noticed, without me telling him.”

“Yeah, he does that,” Surreal agreed, a note of sourness in her tone that told him she was speaking from past experience. “Did he threaten to castrate the bastard for you?”

He hadn’t. Wouldn’t. But Surreal wouldn’t understand why Calixte had refused him, and Sadi did. Rainier didn’t want to explain. He didn’t feel like trying to convince someone else that it had been the right decision when he still wasn’t ready to accept it himself yet.

“Wait,” he said suddenly, as a new thought occurred to him. “Didn’t you see him _before_ I did today?”

She gave him the look of a woman who’d been promised a ripe strawberry and given a sour cherry instead. “I did. Then I had to see him _again_ , because he called me back to talk about _you_.”

“Oh.” Rainier’s voice was small. He cleared his throat, embarrassed. “What did he say?”

Surreal gave him a long, shrewd look. Then she shrugged and said, “He asked if I’d take care of you. And some questions about what it was like for you, serving him instead of a Queen.”

 _Merciful Darkness_. Why hadn’t Sadi asked _him_ that?

“I think he wanted to spare you talking about it,” Surreal said, answering his unspoken question. “At least right now.”

Rainier nodded. Another time, he’d have been happy to reassure his employer, but he could understand why that might not be an easy conversation to have right now. Not when Calixte had chosen duty to a Queen over him.

“Get some fresh glasses,” Surreal ordered, breaking into his self-pity.

Rainier looked down at the wine glasses, then back up at her. “What’s wrong with these?”

“If we’re getting you drunk tonight,” Surreal replied, hooking the bottle from his loose grasp and returning it to the sideboard, “wine isn’t _nearly_ strong enough.”

* * *

“What are you doing?”

Jaenelle’s curious voice behind him made Daemon turn, his fingers just finishing the final button on his cuff. He was dressed in his preferred dark suit and white silk shirt, and even though he hadn’t left his bedroom yet, he already moved with the graceful sensuality of a feline on the prowl. Jaenelle had every right to be curious; normally, this was a display he put on only for her.

“I’m going to Goth.” He crossed the room and kissed her, because he could never resist the opportunity to do so, and because he planned to be gone for the duration of the service fair and so wouldn’t get another chance to do so for a few days. “I’ll be back as soon as I’ve approved the contracts for Court service.”

“Usually you send someone,” she reminded him, her head tilted as she studied him. It pulled the hair away from the side of her neck, and he only resisted the impulse to touch his lips to that favorite sweet spot because she wouldn’t appreciate his distraction.

“I do,” he agreed carefully. “But this time there’s something I need to handle myself.”

It was still his wife and Queen who studied him, but Jaenelle’s sapphire eyes had darkened, a warning that Witch was near the surface, and listening. “Does this have something to do with Rainier?”

She’d surprised him again, though he wasn’t sure why he didn’t expect her leaps of intuition by now. “It does.”

Jaenelle just nodded, some of her intensity fading, as if he’d answered more than that question. She proved it in the next moment, when she asked, “Do you think there are other men like him, who might not want to serve in a Queen’s Court?”

Daemon knew there were. But she wasn’t asking in general; she wanted to know if he was looking for someone in particular. And, likely, whether or not she should be prepared to help him find them.

“I think there’s a good chance.” He was ashamed for not thinking of it earlier, himself; it had taken Rainier to remind him that not all men had the same option he’d given Rainier. Not very many men at all, honestly. “There aren’t many places for men to serve if they don’t wish to wish to offer themselves in the bedroom as well.” And while no Queen in Kaeleer would require it, service to the First Circle would still be expected.

The Warlord Prince of Dhemlan, on the other hand, could take on dark-jeweled males to serve him, and could be expected to control them, because none of them would wear the Black. And he had no First Circle for a man to satisfy. The only woman who needed to be satisfied in Daemon’s home was Jaenelle, and he’d cut the balls off any other man who tried.

Jaenelle nodded, her eyes far away for a moment as she considered something. “I suppose it wouldn’t be easy to send someone to ask for males who enjoy the company of other men,” she mused. Her gaze focused on him, clear again but still soft. “I could go with you.”

He kissed her again, light and lingering. “No.”

There was a definite pout on her face when he pulled away, and he thrilled at having the power to put it there with the promise of his departure. “Why not? You’ve always trusted my instincts and decisions before.”

“And I still do.” Daemon leaned in so that his lips grazed the shell of her ear, making her shudder as he unfurled the sexual heat banked inside him and murmured, “But if you want to catch a certain kind of fish, you have to offer the right bait.”

* * *

Rainier opened his front door to find three witches waiting for him on the other side.

Not just any witches, either. Three _Queens_.

“Kiss kiss,” Karla greeted him. Just like when they were children, she flanked Jaenelle on one side, with Gabrielle on the other. All three of them looked at him with hopeful determination.

He very nearly closed the door on them again.

“Can we come in?” Jaenelle asked, noting his hesitation, and he realized he could never truly shut out these women, who had come into his life one summer and changed it forever. He stepped back to invite them in, and followed more than escorted them to the parlor, where they settled themselves comfortably in a row on the settee, all facing him.

_Hell's fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness be merciful._

“We’ll get right to the point,” Gabrielle said one he’d lowered himself, warily, into the chair across from them. “We know there’s a man who’s just broken your heart, probably because he has to serve as an Escort in a Court, and if it’s not one of our Courts, it’s one we know.”

“Morghann and Kalush couldn’t make it,” Jaenelle explained apologetically. “But they’ve said we can speak for them as well.”

Of course they had. Rainier couldn’t imagine anyone telling these women ‘no’. If the High Lord of Hell couldn’t, what chance did anyone else have?

“Even if he’s signed a contract, we could renegotiate terms,” Gabrielle went on, picking up the thread smoothly. “It’s not fair to ask a man to choose between his Queen and his…”

She paused right before the word _lover_ , and Rainier leapt into the gap before it closed.

“Consort,” he said, startling all three of them. “I asked him to marry me.”

The Queens in his parlor stared at him for a moment, then exchanged looks that Rainier didn’t want to read into. He’d kept his voice firm, but saying it aloud brought back the flood of hurt at asking that question of the only person who mattered, only to be refused.

Karla’s voice had a sharp edge to it, blunted by patient amusement. “You might as well spit out a name, because we’re not leaving until we have it.”

It caught in his throat, but these witches had never made idle threats, so he dragged it out. “Calixte.”

Another exchange of glances. “That’s a Dea al Mon name,” Gabrielle said finally.

She reminded him of Calixte, a little, but only on the surface. Gabrielle had shown raw strength and determination even as a young girl, and growing up had only put more steel in her spine. Calixte looked slight and fragile, as so many of his people did, with wide blue eyes and delicate features, and his superior strength had always come as a welcome surprise.

Rainier dipped his head in acknowledgement. There was a thoughtful hum, and then a flurry of feminine whispering as the trio bent their heads together. For a moment, Rainier could almost see the girls they had been beneath the women they were now.

He didn’t want to defend Calixte, but he also knew what these particular women were capable of when they put their minds to it. “Please,” he said quietly, interrupting their discussion and instantly earning himself their undivided attention. “Don’t punish him. He made a choice. I understand why he made it.”

Three pairs of unblinking eyes gazed back at him. “We’re not questioning his choice,” Jaenelle said after a moment. “We just don’t think he should have had to make it.”

“There are other men who aren’t asked for that kind of service,” Gabrielle put in. “Married men.”

“Only because there’s a wife who has final say,” Rainier replied, and this time the bitterness did creep out, in spite of his efforts to hold it back. “If someone asked for him, they wouldn’t be asking me.”

“We’re working on that,” Jaenelle told him, unruffled.

“Daemon is working on that,” Gabrielle added thoughtfully, oblivious to the way her words made the bottom drop out of Rainier’s stomach.

Jaenelle muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “ _fishing_.”

“No one should have to serve if they don’t want to,” Karla said, sounding fierce about it. Since Karla had never taken a male lover in her life, so far as Rainier knew, he could understand it being a subject she took personally.

“That’s not the problem,” Rainier said, suddenly tired again. “He does want to serve. It’s not a choice between honor and love--it’s love for a person up against a love for his Queen.”

There was another pause.

“Is he her Consort?” Jaenelle asked. Rainier shook his head.

“First Escort?” Gabrielle, probing. He shook his head again.

“Father of her child?” When Rainier shook his head a third time, Karla said dryly, “I’m really not seeing the problem here.”

Rainier licked his lips. He hadn’t, either...until Calixte had painfully spelled it out. “By asking him to choose me as his Consort,” he explained quietly, “I’m asking him not to serve.”

Calixte was a Warlord Prince, and one who followed the Old Ways. Protocol gave him a purpose, a code, a place, and an outlet. Serving in a Court provided direction and control for emotions that could become violent if left unchecked. Service to a Queen soothed a temper that could turn dangerous, and channeled that energy into defending and protecting. It was more than a duty; it was a way of life. A reason for living.

They sat in silence for a moment.

“Ah, shit,” Karla said finally, which seemed to be the cue for the others to stir.

To his surprise, Gabrielle enveloped him in an embrace as soon as they were both standing. “I’m sorry,” she said, quietly enough to keep it private between them. “You deserve to be happy.”

Rainier swallowed the lump in his throat. “Thank you,” he said, his voice rough.

Karla was next, and she squeezed him a good deal tighter. He almost lost his breath, but she let him hug her back just as fiercely without complaint. “It’s his loss,” she said gruffly. “You deserve better than him, anyway.”

He found he couldn’t say anything to that, so he just held on for a moment more before letting go.

Jaenelle was last, but her embrace was gentle, and almost quick. Unlike the other two, she didn’t offer sympathies or condolences, just a reassuring pat on the back before she released him.

“You chose well,” she said simply, once their eyes met.

Rainier could only bow his head, and hope it hid the telltale brightness in his eyes.

* * *

The last person Rainier expected to see on his doorstep - apart from the coven, for the second time in a week - was Calixte.

“May I enter?” he asked, and the words were so formal, at odds with the uncertain way he held himself and the caution in his voice, that Rainier found himself stepping aside without thinking twice about it.

They stood just inside the door after Rainier had closed it behind them, and spent a moment simply staring at each other. It had been less than a week since Rainier’s doomed proposal, but he felt starved for the sight of Calixte already--the mole on the pale skin of his neck; the furrow in his brow; the thin curve of his lips. Rainier wanted to press his own mouth to those lips so badly that he had to hold himself stiff just to keep from reaching out.

“I’ve been offered a contract,” Calixte said carefully after a moment, “with one of the territory Queens in Kaeleer.”

Rainier’s heart made a small lurch in his chest that he refused to call hope. Even if Gabrielle or Karla - the most likely candidates - had made an offer without the expectation of certain services, Calixte would feel honor-bound to service the other ladies of the Court. It had never been a question of which Queen he served; the problem remained, no matter the ruler.

Rainier was so wrapped up in his self-pitying thoughts that he almost missed it when Calixte continued, “The Queen of Centauran.”

Rainier blinked once. Then his eyes widened. When he looked into Calixte’s eyes, he saw something he hadn’t believed he’d see there: Hope.

“I thought they didn’t allow…” Rainier began, before running out of breath and simply shaking his head in disbelief.

“They don’t usually accept males of other species to serve in the Court, no. But being Dea al Mon, I’m told they consider me a kind of ‘forest cousin’, and are willing to make an exception. Apparently,” Calixte said, embarrassment coloring his cheeks, “the Queen of Centauran has granted it as a special favor.”

 _Jaenelle_. Rainier knew without having to think about it; remembered the lack of pity in her eyes when she’d told him, _you chose well_.

“Could you see yourself serving there?” Rainier asked, still not quite daring to hope. He knew what it meant, what Jaenelle had done. Clever Queen; by surrounding Calixte with centaurs, she’d given him a way to serve and protect without there ever being a question of his being called into the bedroom.

Calixte nodded slowly. “I’ve had to think about it, but they’re not so different from us. From the Dea al Mon,” he clarified. “They’re not like Kindred. And their Queen…” He stopped, and then nodded again. “I think I could.”

Rainier let himself reach out then, though he forced his hands into fists to keep from touching Calixte before he asked about the final matter. “And...my question?”

Calixte was silent for a single, agonizing moment before he replied, “Queen Clia told me she expected to meet my Consort, once I was in her service. She said she’d consider it rude, otherwise.”

The breath he’d been holding shuddered out of Rainier all at once. “Then you accept?”

“If you’ll have me.” Calixte’s eyes were dark with humor and warmth. He flowed forward so smoothly that Rainier didn’t realize he’d been backed against the door until his shoulders hit wood. Calixte’s voice was low and promising when he murmured, “Or if you’ll let me have you.”

Rainier made a desperate, whimpering noise of want until Calixte abruptly stopped it with the crush of their mouths, his hands cupping Rainier’s cheeks and his slim body caging Rainier in against the wood. Calixte was slighter even than Rainier with his dancer’s build, but he was far stronger than he looked, and where Rainier’s movements had the grace of a ballroom behind them - or had once, before his injury - Calixte moved like water rolling over a leaf. Calixte slid his hands over Rainier’s arms and suddenly his wrists were pinned above his head, all of the blood in his body draining south with a speed that left him dizzy.

“Do you want to celebrate my new contract?” Calixte asked, licking Rainier’s lip before biting the corner of his mouth. Rainier’s response was to wrap a leg - his bad one, because it couldn’t support his weight alone - around Calixte’s calf to pull him in closer and rub against him in eager assent, showing him just how ready Rainier was for that kind of celebration.

Calixte chuckled and kissed him again, over and over until Rainier had lost track of the number and his lips buzzed from the friction. “It’s a five-year contract, to start,” Calixte confided when they broke off, a low, seductive purr in his ear. “I thought I’d bring you off once for every year, a different way each time.”

Rainier whimpered. Calixte’s thigh had found its way sinuously between his legs, and Rainier was riding it shamelessly, his own legs turned to jelly.

“You’ll visit?” Rainier asked, needing to know. His wrists were released as Calixte slid both hands under Rainier’s shirt to caress his nipples, but he didn’t have the focus to do anything besides drape his arms around Calixte’s narrow shoulders to hold him close.

“I’ll visit,” Calixte promised. “You’ll visit. Does this mean you’ll take me back?”

His mouth left a trail of wet, heated kisses under Rainier’s chin, across his jaw and throat. Rainier tilted his head back toward the ceiling to give Calixte more room, and breathed out, “Only if you take _me_ , in a bed, right now.”

Rainier’s answer was a long, low moan, swallowed by Calixte’s hungry mouth.

They didn’t make it to the bed.

That was all right. They had four more tries to make it there.


End file.
